


Not Once, Not Ever

by blanketed_in_stars



Series: 52 Weeks of Wolfstar [38]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Again, Arguing, Grimmauld Place, I do love him, Irony, Lack of Communication, M/M, Manipulative Dumbledore, Winter, but he is a problematic fave to end all problematic faves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4872340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is tired, and scared, and in danger of ruining everything (again).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Once, Not Ever

**Author's Note:**

> Week 38
> 
> I'm writing Christmas fic in September. There's something wrong with me.
> 
> Title from "The End Of All Things" in the [_Return of the King_ soundtrack](http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie_soundtrack_rotk.htm)

The air bites, a cruel kiss. Remus shivers his way through the snowy courtyard to the door of Number 12 and knocks with stinging knuckles.

Sirius answers the door smiling. “Happy Christmas,” he says.

“It’s still a bit early for that,” Remus remarks as he hurries inside, the snow falling off of his feet and cloak in big white clumps. He breathes in warmth and wants to collapse, to sleep right there in the hall.

“Bah, humbug, is that it?” Sirius asks, closing the door against the chill.

Remus sighs. “Happy Christmas, Padfoot.” He looks down the hall, past the curtained portrait, noting that all the lamps are lit. “Are there visitors?”

“The Weasleys and Harry, actually.” Sirius leads him into the dining room before continuing. “They arrived last night.”

Remus experiences a peculiar torquing sensation in the pit of his stomach, the instinctive result of over thirty years’ bad news. “What’s happened?” he demands, bracing his hands automatically on the table.

“It’s all right,” Sirius assures him. “Or it will be.”

“That’s not very helpful.”

Sirius takes a seat and gestures for him to do the same. “Arthur was on duty at the Ministry last night,” he says, “and some sort of snake bit him badly. Harry saw it.”

“Harry saw—?”

“He had a dream about it.”

Remus blinks. He’s been swallowing back the stealing and spying and long, pointless conversations for weeks, reaching finally for a chance to rest—and now this, forcing itself down his throat. He runs a hand through his hair, damp from the melted snow. “How is Arthur?”

“Much better than before, as I understand it,” Sirius says. “Everyone’s visiting him at St. Mungo’s right now.”

Remus hears the note of jealousy there, the bitterness. The loneliness. He hurries to move on. “And you’re saying Harry saw the attack in a dream?”

Sirius nods.

Remus’s fingers are starting to regain feeling; he flexes them painfully. “That’s nothing new,” he says, mostly to himself. “It’s happened before. And it’s lucky, really, isn’t it?”

“Well…” Sirius’s eyes are clouded. Remus’s heart sinks. “He talked to me this morning. Said that in the—dream, or whatever it was—that he _was_ the snake. And that apparently he felt, er, snakelike. After he woke up, I mean. He said he wanted to attack Dumbledore.”

Remus can only stare. It doesn’t sound like Harry. It doesn’t sound like anything he’s ever heard of. “What—what did you tell him?” he asks after a moment.

Sirius shrugs and lifts his palms to the ceiling. “I told him not to worry, that it was just shock. He said he’d told Dumbledore, at least about part of it, so it can’t be significant if he hasn’t made a fuss—but, Moony, d’you think that’s right? Or is it bad?”

Remus presses his fingers to his closed eyelids. In the warm house he is starting to feel his exhaustion, the weight of it in his bones and across his shoulders. But he forces himself to look at Sirius and answer. “I think we should trust Dumbledore,” he manages. “I think we have to.” It’s the same thing he’s been telling himself all year, ever since the beginning of the summer. If they can’t trust him, what will they do?

Sirius looks less than satisfied. “Doesn’t sound like you believe that.”

“Well, I do.” He does. He trusts Dumbledore. There is nothing else. And sometimes he really does think this, Remus knows. But lately it’s been a rare occurrence.

There is a slightly awkward silence, as it becomes more and more clear that Remus is lying. To Sirius, yes, but to himself most of all, about a number of things. Remus thinks about prying apart his lips and telling Sirius where he’s been for the past month, where he’s going to have to go. But first he has to figure out where to start.

In the lull in the conversation, Sirius gets up and taps the kettle on the stove, which whistles immediately. He pours the water into two mugs and adds tea, and brings them back to the table.

Remus accepts his, then pauses. “Have you been drinking?” he asks, sniffing.

“A little.” Sirius adds sugar to his tea before looking up and noticing Remus’s gaze on him. “What? It’s not like there’s much else to do around here.”

Remus doesn’t miss the slight barb in those words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

That’s not right, Remus thinks, but the steam from his mug is warm on his face, and his tongue is leaden in his mouth. And his eyelids are slipping shut.

“Will you be staying for Christmas?” Sirius asks.

Remus jerks out of his doze and falls back into himself. “Of course,” he says, yawning.

“I just wanted to be sure.”

Groggy though he is, Remus catches the quarrelsome tone. “What’d you mean?” he asks. “Of course I’ll stay, Sirius. It’s Christmas.”

“Of course,” Sirius echoes. “It’s just,” he says after a moment, some heat in his voice—“Never mind.”

The wooden chair groans slightly as Remus sits up straighter. “No, what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It clearly isn’t!” Oh, and he didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he is so tired and more than a little scared. He shoots to his feet and stalks into the hall where he yanks the curtains over Mrs. Black’s portrait. Then he stumbles back into the dining room.

Sirius waits until he’s back in the chair. “It’s been two months,” he bursts out, “and you haven’t spent more than a week here in total. I can count your visits on one hand.”

“I’m busy,” Remus protests. “It’s the Order, there’s a lot to do—”

“Everyone’s been around. Kingsley, Mad-Eye, Tonks, even Mundungus. Hestia stayed for a week between missions.”

“Look, Sirius—”

“No, I’m not done.” The smell of stale firewhiskey, or something stronger, intensifies as Sirius leans forward. “I am going mad in here, I mean it, and you’ve barely even talked to me since Halloween. Is it—something I’ve done, or—”

“No!” Remus nearly upsets his mug. “No, it’s not you. It’s—” He stops, presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids until he starts to see colors in the blackness. “I’m trying to stay as busy as I can,” he says, eyes still closed. “There’s a job Dumbledore wants done, and I don’t—I can’t do it.”

“What is it?” Sirius asks, and his tone is kinder now, though still with a rough edge.

Remus sighs. “He wants a spy for the werewolves, living with them and gathering information. Trying to bring as many as possible over to our side. Sirius, I—I have to keep busy, I need to have an excuse.”

“You should have told me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Remus rubs at his face in an effort to pull himself together. It doesn’t work. “I’ve been… I don’t know. It’s been hell.” He knows Sirius will understand that, at least.

But Sirius places both hands on the table, commanding his attention and giving him a look of single-minded intensity. “Remus, it’s always going to be hell. Until this war is over, nothing is going to go right. But we can’t let that stop us from talking to each other, if only to explain what’s going on.”

The urge to curl into a ball comes over Remus again, and it’s only with difficulty that he resists. “I know, I said I’m—”

“—Sorry, yeah, but—Remus, this is how it went last time.” There is a note of real fear in those words, enough that Remus’s heart contracts. Sirius stares at him, gray eyes burning and bright. “We didn’t talk and we didn’t pay attention, and it ruined everything. Literally.”

Remus holds his gaze.

“We can’t do that again,” Sirius presses. “We have to talk. We have to be here for each other.”

“I am here,” Remus says. “I’m right here.”

“But will you stay?” Sirius shakes his head. “Not just for Christmas. You have to— _we_ have to stay connected this time.” He is nearly crying, Remus realizes, though clearly fighting hard not to. “I can’t go through it again. I just…”

Remus feels gutted. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, swallows, speaks louder. “I didn’t think of it like that.” He’s been an idiot. Or—not an idiot, precisely, but something of a prick. He’s got his reasons, but nothing is worth another break between them. “Okay,” he says, nodding. “We’ll talk. I’ll be here. It’s—it’s going to be different, I promise.”

Sirius nods. He sips his tea and grimaces. “Cold.”

Remus casts a heating charm on both mugs. He’s glad just to do that much. He can feel all his fingers now, and his toes too, and the kitchen is very warm. “Do you think there’s a tree somewhere in the attic?” he asks. “Ornaments?”

Sirius grins. They lean forward as one. Outside, the snow drifts gently down.

**Author's Note:**

> "He has the last of my heart./I will go with him to the end." —["The Fields Of Pelennor" from _The Return of the King_ soundtrack](http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie_soundtrack_rotk.htm)


End file.
